Phantom Limb Company Conceived by Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko Choreography by Ryan Heffington
Five-thousand years of environmental change unfold beneath the boughs of the world’s oldest living tree in this phantasmagoric mix of puppetry, choreography, music, and macabre fairy tales from Phantom Limb Company (69 ̊S., 2011 Next Wave). In a dark wood filled with tech-savvy forest creatures and humans navigating an increasingly Googleable world, a series of surreal wordless vignettes unfolds. Marionettes and masked performers channel fragments from Gilgamesh, Snow White, and other tales, resulting in a poetic and enchanted mirror of our hubris and hope that illuminates the long history of humanity’s place in nature, with and without nurture.
PROGRAM NOTES
Direction and design by Jessica Grindstaff Original music and puppet design by Erik Sanko Costume design by Henrik Vibskov Lighting design by Brian H. Scott Sound design by Darron L. West Projection design by Keith Skretch Dramaturgy by Janice Paran Creative Producer Mara Isaacs/Octopus Theatricals Co-produced by Oz Arts Nashville Co-commissioned by BAM, CAP UCLA, the New York University Abu Dhabi Arts Center and ASU Gammage at Arizona State University
Co-founders of Phantom Limb Company Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko lead this master class that focuses on how to tell a story using abstraction, movement, and marionettes.
Sat, Nov 19, 2016
In conjunction with Memory Rings
Talks
Humans and Nature: Examining People and Climate Change
Phantom Limb co-founders Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko and Daniel Schrag, director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, examine our tempestuous relationship to the environment.
Explore the Festival
Nov 9Nov 12, 2016
On polymathic songwriter Connie Converse.
Theater
A Star Has Burnt My Eye
Howard Fishman, Connie Converse
Howard Fishman’s new play about polymathic songwriter and outsider artist Connie Converse, who vanished without an audience or album to her name but left behind treasure trove of home recordings.
Nov 9Nov 13, 2016
Corporeal encounters with 5,000 strands of nylon.
Physical Theater
Plexus
Aurélien Bory, Kaori Ito, Compagnie 111
French physical theater maverick Aurélien Bory takes Japanese dancer Kaori Ito, entangled in a dense field of 5,000 black nylon wires, as both muse and instrument.
Dec 10Dec 18, 2016
Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker meets 1970s suburbia.
Dance
The Hard Nut
E.T.A. Hoffmann, Mark Morris Dance Group, MMDG Music Ensemble,
The Hard Nut Singers, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Colin Fowler, Mark Morris
Mark Morris Dance Group’s beloved reimagining of The Nutcracker—a lavish, gender-bent love letter that playfully preserves the warm spirit of an essential holiday tradition—returns to BAM for the holidays.